Ruffled Feathers
Contributions from the public to the
Words on the Street project
As part of the Word on the Street project with Buxton Our Street, we’re collecting contributions from local residents, visitors and passing pigeons (that will make sense I the following poet!). For more information, visit this post, or just the coordinator, Gordon, a line to creepingtoad@btinternet.com
Here are a few words to walk you along our streets
Just to keep us looking at Spring Gardens, and appreciating ridiculous moment, here are a couple more limericks
Never before in our town,
Had we seen a tall man in a gown.
We were so impressed,
That we got him undressed,
Until all he had on was his frown.
Spring Gardens is known for its shops,
With hats: bowlers, caps or tops.
What nobody knows,
And where nobody goes,
Is the lost world of rivers and rocks.
Of course Buxton’s fame grew with access to our wells and visitors would come to take the waters….
In Pursuit of a Cure
A fashionable lady in Buxton, 1820
By Dr Sarah Raybould
Ay, the pain it breeds
and rheumatism plagues these limbs –
fayre Buxton lies my fate
to take her waters.
Tepid, from thermal spring
a thousand feet above the sea,
from holy well,
a draft to soothe a lady’s malady.
Two glasses, each a third in size
before we feast,
two more at tea -
and this, they say, will see me fit.
Bathe and exercise with genteel folk
who languish in this town
and seek diversion and amusement
from leisurely excursions to the Crescent.
Her streets adorned with coffee houses,
rich aromas, windows stocked with
trinkets, gloves and muffs –
fine prospect for a lady’s pleasure.
Behold a poultice held in place
with strips of cloth,
and oyntment – vile the smell –
from yon apothecary’s room
where ladies gather, fashionably sick,
to breathe the vapours,
examine tinctures, bottles of broth
that boast a purgative effect.
But lo! This day beguiles
and feigning sick will take to bed.
This nyte is bleake and I am done for –
opium my bedside drink.
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| once upon a time, the Cavendish Arcade was one of those places to take the waters.... |
Buxton may be a town of running water and cold stone but we are also high in the hills and the skies above us hold their own stories…when you walk along Spring Gardens, look up!
In the Town, Above the Town.
Jonathan Davey
Winter grey washes across the wet stone,
light mist driven away by dark wind
blasting in across from Goyt.
The damp, a gift from the west, comes pouring into the cup of Buxton
From down the town
laughter and the sound of empty beer cans.
General daftness at the end of the week.
A week spent chasing love or exam results or money.
And at the end of that wet week,
although there may be more snow to come,
the curlew and golden plover travel in above the town
Unknown, unseen, unheard.
Above the grey stone buildings,
the shouts, sirens and Friday night shenanigans,
the winds, the mist, the wet, the snow,
for how much longer will the silent wings travel over our town
And watch….remember this town is home to more than just human people
my flight home to Buxton
David Carlisle
I feel the fresh air of home lift me and my spirits – this is Derbyshire air.
My journey home has been long; it feels like years since I’ve been here, but has only been a few days. I scan the green pasture beneath and spot the rolling hills in the near distance. I have crossed many rivers and borders to be here, but now I feel the tug at my heart as I soar northwards along the Ashbourne Road.
Passing over old railway tracks, grassed over quarry lines and craggy rock faces: quarry, that steadfast employer and provider of bread and meat for generations of families. Remnants of industrial heritage taint the air slightly with grit.
Gloriously cut quarry stones smile up at me. This beautiful rocky ruin holds close to its fractured core the odd mixture of dereliction, one part from abandoned chiselling and one from untouched landscape. The scars that remain still run through the hearts of those workers left behind. Their promised reward of lifelong work, worth everything.
Mother earth is quick to repair, she soon soothes damage. Still in these solid communities, hearing “quarrying’s no longer sustainable” will light the blue touch-paper of a verbal firework display. Proud, rooted people close to nature, naturally close.
Entering Buxton, I declare in whispered tone, “this is my home,” a place where my heart feels rested and I remember much of the past. I like the buildings’ scars of Spring Gardens, they tell a story of exactly how it was. No need to hide them, better to show and tell the story of how they came about – to use them to effectively teach others and point the right way to the future.
My journey is almost complete as I wheel around the Grove Hotel – grand old lady and street sentinel. I’m tiring from the Derbyshire odyssey beneath me. Little more than a stone plinth on a Corinthian column, but of course to a homing pigeon returning from overseas, this is my castle in the air.
There will be more!
We have an event coming up on Sunday 19th February at the Pump Room in Buxton (details to follow very soon!) where anyone’s everyone, old friends new friends passing strangers might all drop in and put pen to paper - or just read quietly, read aloud, laugh or weep as the words call to them!
Thanks to Sarah, David and Jonathan for their poems and stories (limericks remain anonymous). if you would like to contribute, follow the link to this post for more information
